


Weevil's Lament

by nom



Category: Torchwood
Genre: Angst, Children of Earth, Episode Related, F/M, Jack/Janet
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-03-18
Updated: 2010-03-18
Packaged: 2017-10-08 02:46:35
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,754
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/71890
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nom/pseuds/nom
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sometimes there is no logical way to cope with loss. Incautious time-travel, drinking too much, and unusual hookups and mourning methods may ensue.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Weevil's Lament

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the [](http://community.livejournal.com/omnijaxual/profile)[**omnijaxual**](http://community.livejournal.com/omnijaxual/) community.  
> **Warnings:** melancholyboozehound!Jack. Weevil sex.  
> **Spoilers:** Through "Children of Earth."

It takes a long time, but eventually Jack finds someone who can do something with the Vortex Manipulator function on his wrist-strap. The woman says the repair's a little hinky and might not hold for more than four, maybe five timejumps. He's pleased she managed anything with it at all.

Before Jack heads back to the Hub, he has a drink or three. And brings along a bottle. For courage.

He knows it's stupid and dangerous. Crossing himself is a bad idea; one he should avoid. But with some insane amount of luck, or something, he nails it and arrives right where he wants to be just as Ianto's leaving.

What he _wants_ to do is say "to hell with paradoxes, to hell with not crossing timelines." He _wants_ to do more than see Ianto from a safe distance for a few seconds. He _wants_ to take Ianto to a corner, or to a nice comfortable bed -- his own old comfortable bed here in the Hub by preference -- and kiss him deeply, fuck him senseless, come together, come, come, stay.

++

He knows he can't. He can't pass himself off as his youngerself to sneak a quick kiss in the shadows. Wrong clothes. Deeper lines around his eyes. A few too many strands of grey in his hair by now. His observant Ianto would notice, no matter how dim the light. He can't risk it.

Still, getting to see Ianto, however briefly -- even after all this time it makes something in his chest stutter. He's... happy... to have caught another glimpse of him, the lost lover he never quite got over.

Well, he never quite got over any of them, the ones that meant anything and were lost to battle, time, betrayal, circumstance -- but Ianto was the lover who, knowing he was immortal, made him promise never to forget.

He hasn't forgotten, despite the temptation to, the many times when grief or fear of letting someone else come close makes it hard to function.

++

Jack actually remembers all of his families and most of his lovers. Even the lovers of only a night or an hour, most of them have left a fragment of sense-memory imprinted on him somewhere.

Ianto was important, and left far more than fragments. Ianto left him with feelings of sharp regret, remembrance of worry and pride, joy and delight, raging anger at his absence, anguish and bitterness.

Ianto. Who he didn't value enough. Who knew what he was. Who didn't quite know how to love him but did it anyway. Ianto, who was bold and playful and brave. Ianto, who he just saw walking away for the last time. Ianto, who he wants to go find and kiss and keep kissing goodbye until he changes history and goodbye can be deferred for decades.

He can't. He's here for a purpose. He can't warn his youngerself, he can't kidnap Ianto out of his proper time, he can't tell Gwen her baby will be wonderful and that despite all her recent and upcoming losses she'll have a good life.

What he _can_ and will do is this one small thing. An act of kindness, of mercy.

++

Right, the plan, what he came here to do. Jack uses the poor-man's imitation sonic screwdriver he bought from the nice lady who fixed his wrist-strap to make the security cameras within range loop "nothing going on" footage. Then he takes a drink and walks around the corner to the holding cells.

Janet is cowering in the corner of hers, hissing.

"Hi, Janet," Jack says. "Did my timejump here hurt you? Sorry about that. Ianto was just here to feed you though, so you shouldn't be complaining too much. And I dropped in to do something nice for you, how's that?"

Janet's hissing decreases in volume. She never liked him, back in the day, but now she tilts her head almost enquiringly.

"Can't quite figure out what's wrong with me, what's different, huh?" says Jack. "I'm not the man I used to be, is all. Everything changes. Things change. Not always for the better. You know?"

His bottle's still open, so he decides another swallow or two won't hurt. "They say you get over loss, things hurt less over time. Well, I've lived through a _lot_ of time, and that's not really true. I don't think they hurt less, just less _urgently_."

He looks at Janet again, sees she's a little closer to the front of her cell. "What about you, you lost your kid, right? And I remember you were sad when your other Weevil friends died. Still hurts, doesn't it?"

Janet stops hissing, looks at him, and starts making a different sound, something like a low whistle.

++

"Oh," says Jack. "Mourning. Yes, mourning is appropriate. Especially this week." Time for another drink. He's glad he brought the bottle. Being back here is rougher than he thought it would be.

Janet's moved to the front of her cell now, looking at Jack.

Jack knows it's crazy to think he's having a conversation with a Weevil, but, well, he's got a little while before he needs to get out of here, and talking to Janet might stop him from doing something stupid. Like trying to go upstairs. So he talks to her.

"My team, they're all dead, Janet. All my teams are dead, everyone I care about keeps dying while I live on and on and on and on. Shit, I'm getting maudlin off this stuff, I should stop," he says, taking another swig.

"Being here now, it makes me miss them all over again," he says. "This team, all dead. First poor cracked Suzie. Then Owen and Tosh, and in a few days Ianto, my Ianto. Not Gwen yet -- she'll live a nice full life, she and her Rhys, her family, there's that at least. Let's drink to that!" and he does, Janet watching his hand.

"Tosh and Owen's deaths, what a waste. My daughter, who hated me until she died for what the poor sod upstairs is going to do. Steven, young Steven, who I had to kill to save all the others. I didn't _love_ all those other kids, I loved my _grandson_. But I had to kill him anyway. And Ianto, what purpose did his death serve? Screw that, I don't want him to die," Jack says, slamming his fist against the glass. "But I have to let him." Jack closes his eyes because it hurts.

When he opens them again, he sees that Janet's hand is flat on the glass, right opposite his fist. Her whistling sounds somehow sympathetic.

++

He needs another shot from the bottle to cope with that. That done, he looks back at Janet and says, "Well, old girl, we don't have all day, so we'd better get going. Get you going. That."

It'll be a lot easier if she's cooperative, and he thinks they've got a reasonable rapport going on, so he says, "Janet, this stuff I've been drinking's pretty good. How about you promise not to attack me if I let you have some? And we'll go down to the lower tunnels so you can get out of here before this place blows, how's that? Sound like a plan?"

Janet seems to think it's a good plan -- that is, she isn't disagreeing with him. In fact, she's completely quiet now, so Jack lets her out of her cell.

He hands her the bottle and she sniffs it, but apparently it isn't to her taste. More for him then. "Let's go," he says, and heads for the lower levels, only weaving a little. Halfway there, Janet stops him, gripping his arm. He'd forgotten how strong Weevils are. Still, she's not actually hurting him.

"What?" he asks. Janet looks at him, pushes the bottle at him, and starts whistling again. He takes another drink, and things get very blurry.

++

Janet's whistling sounds different now, not just sorrowful but something else besides. It confuses him. Or maybe it's his liquid fortification that's confused him.

He can't think of any other way to explain why all of a sudden he finds himself lying on the cold floor, Janet somehow holding him, petting his back while she whistles plaintively of lives lost and lives that continue, of things that must be celebrated even amidst loss.

At some point, Janet's boilersuit seems to vanish, and so do some of his clothes. Janet's whistling now is closer to crooning, resembles a mother's lullabies to her young sons, evokes the whispers of stars as they slowly spin, die, and are born.

The sound becomes both sad and comforting. Yes, it murmurs, there is vast emptiness, yes, death finds us all, but what of the moments of grace, of drawing together, is it not better to love and mourn than to stay apart and only ever feel the darkness waiting?

++

Jack doesn't know if he's crying or laughing or maybe both when Janet moves on top of him and takes him deep inside herself.

Janet's skin is colder than his, but her slick tightness envelops him in something almost like warmth. She's strong above him and around him, whispersinging some of his grief to rest. She holds his wrists down and clenches around his cock, milking him of tears and semen with her body and her voice.

He's pinned beneath her, nearly immobile, his orgasm going on and on in waves like the tide, like the melody of her chant, now slowly fading to a low whisper, a soft sibilance that turns into silence. Jack lets himself sink into this moment of purity, sadness at bay, briefly cleansed of all thought, despite some part of him sensing the restless emotions and regrets already edging back into his mind.

He doesn't want to open his eyes yet, though he can hear cloth rustling. His eyes are still closed when he feels Janet bend back down. She licks away his tears, and then she leaves.

From the sound of it she's making her way down to the tunnels, her chance at freedom, at living past this day. He hopes she'll be well.

++

After a while, Jack straightens his clothes, pulls himself together, and makes his own exit.

He's a mile away when he hears the Hub explode. His empty bottle falls and smashes on the pavement, but he doesn't stop.

Janet's gift, her lamentation, let him see that the past is there to mourn or remember with joy, not to relive. He walks on, facing his future.

+++

**Author's Note:**

> Feedback? Appreciated, here or [at LJ](http://nomanomynous.livejournal.com/3873.html).


End file.
